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Quotes about Droughts from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"Our ancestors were also programmed to deal with food scarcity during droughts, rainy seasons, and winter. These cycles were so frequent and consistent that humans-and all other animals-developed genetic sequences that activate only during periods of starvation, protecting cells from damage. Obviously, if a creature makes it through a period of starvation, it can pass along its genes. In Phase 3 of Diet Evolution, you'll learn how to activate these genes-without the starvation! PLANTS AS ALCHEMISTS Now let's learn some lessons from plants." - Dr. Steven R. Gundry, Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution: Turn Off the Genes That Are Killing You - And Your Waistline - And Drop the Weight for Good (Get the book.)

"In so doing, they placed many of their economic eggs in single baskets, a strategy that worked well until El Nifios or other climatic anomalies brought droughts or torrential rains that swept away in a few days the work of generations. In 2550 B.C., a Sumerian scribe in Mesopotamia complained of great hardship: Famine was severe, nothing was produced . . . The water rose not high The fields are not watered ... In all the lands there was no vegetation, Only weeds grow?" - Brian Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"We could ensure against floods or droughts, settle in one place, and build permanent shelters. We discovered that through selective breeding we could create new varieties of plants and animals. This enabled us to accelerate evolution, and to direct its course. In just a few thousand years, we produced hundreds of different cereals from just a few simple grasses, and a thousand different breeds of dog, plus many varieties of fruits, vegetables, horses, cattle, and sheep. At about the same time, we made another important discovery: the making of fire." - Peter Russell, Waking Up In Time: Finding Inner Peace In Times of Accelerating Change (Get the book.)

"Foraging remained an important component of the diet— particularly during droughts. At first sites were occupied for a few decades before people moved on to new locations, but by about ad 1150 there was no unused arable land to move into or cultivate when local crops failed. The landscape was full, the desert's rainfall was capricious, and its soil was fragile. As in the Old World centuries earlier, settlements became increasingly sedentary and their heavy investment in agricultural infrastructure discouraged farmers from leaving fields fallow every few years." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"A poisonous, non-protein amino acid (ODAP) may cause lathyrism (paralysis of the lower limbs) when grass pea forms a large part of the diet during droughts and famines (often in central India). Over 90% of the substance can be removed by boiling and baking but this unfortunately also reduces the nutritional value of the pulse. Nutritional value The seeds are rich in proteins (25-30%) and carbohydrates (60%). The high levels of lysine make it suitable for lysine-poor cereal diets." - Ben-Erik van Wyk, Food Plants of the World: An illustrated guide (Get the book.)

"In addition, plots of organic farms fare better during both floods and droughts, because the soil has a superior ability to absorb and retain water, attributes that will become even more valuable as global climate change escalates." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.) "Depending on where we live, we can expect more droughts, more heavy downpours, or both. If we are to navigate this crisis, we must start looking at water in a whole new way. We have to save water every chance we get. Just as we need to find more efficient ways of using energy, we need to find more effective water technologies. Many already exist, and many more are on the way—but the speed with which we adopt them will have much to do with our success or failure in meeting this crisis." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.) "Rising seas, catastrophic storms, prolonged droughts, crop failures, floods: the list of global warming-driven catastrophes seems to grow daily, and every time catastrophe hits, some insurance company somewhere is on the hook for a lot of money—more than $200 billion in 2005 alone (Environment News Service, December 7, 2005). Increasingly, t'he industry (supported by their armies of bean counters) is coming to the conclusion that, never mind scientific certainty, they can't afford even the risk of significant climate change." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.) "Storms of unusual intensity or unexpected trajectory seem to sweep parts of the world each week, while farmers battle historic droughts in southern Africa and the southwestern United States. Many scientists say that such anomalies point to global warming. This is how most of us will experience the climate emergency in years to come. We'll hardly notice the gradual rise in average temperatures, the slight but sustained shifts in yearly rainfall, the upward creep of sea levels." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"It's possible that as glaciers melt and more fresh water pours into the Atlantic, the great ocean conveyor, which strongly influences global climate, might temporarily slow down, potentially causing an ice age era like the "Little Ice Age," a time of hard winters, violent storms, and droughts between 1300 and 1850, say Randall and Schwartz. That period's weather extremes caused horrific famines, but it was relatively mild. However, a total shutdown of the ocean conveyor might lead to a big chill like the Younger Dryas, when icebergs appeared as far south as the coast of Portugal." - David Steinman, Safe Trip to Eden: Ten Steps to Save Planet Earth from the Global Warming Meltdown (Get the book.)

"But time and again it left societies increasingly vulnerable to hostile neighbors, internal sociopolitical disruption, and harsh winters or droughts. Although societies dating back to ancient Mesopotamia damaged their environments, dreams of returning to a lost ethic of land stewardship still underpin modern environmental rhetoric. Indeed, the idea that ancient peoples lived in harmony with the environment remains deeply rooted in the mythology of Western civilizations, enshrined in the biblical imagery of the garden of Eden and notions of a golden age of ancient Greece." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"When Vata goes out of balance in nature, it causes earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Disturbed Pitta generates heat waves and great destruction through fires. Irritated Kapha leads to excessive cold, rain and flooding. In the body, an unbalanced Vata dosha causes gas, pressure, pain, dryness, shaking and nervousness. If Pitta dosha is disturbed, the body overheats, acidifies or suffers from inflammatory diseases." - Andreas Moritz, Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You (Get the book.)

"People may endure temporary droughts, but desertification forces emigration once the land can no longer sustain either grazing or farming. Desertification is not just happening in Africa. More than a tenth of Earth's land area is desertifying—about a third of the planet's dry lands. Studies over the past fifty years report a pace of desertification in regions with between 5 and 20 inches of annual tainfall that, if continued, would desertify most of the entire semiarid zone in this century." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"In 1998 a strong El Nino helped generate severe droughts in Amazonia and East Asia, leading to gigantic forest fires which blanketed whole continents in smog. In the Amazon basin alone, 400 million tonnes of carbon were released, equivalent to 5 per cent of human emissions from fossil fuel burning for that whole year. Surprisingly, the Amazon forest ecosystem turns out to have been remarkably resilient to past climate changes. Even during the chilly depths of the last ice age, the forest persisted relatively undisturbed, despite cooler temperatures and lower rainfall." - Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Get the book.) "Food prices internationally would rise, particularly if serious droughts hit other areas simultaneously. And although more southerly parts of the United States are expected to get wetter as the North American monsoon intensifies, residents here may not welcome an influx of several million new people. Further east, however, agriculture may actually benefit from warmer temperatures and higher rainfall." - Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Get the book.) "In addition, summer droughts mean forests becoming tinder-dry and increasingly susceptible to wildfires. The northern Rockies, Great Basin and Southwest could see the length of their fire season - which already exacts a deadly toll in bad years - extended by two to three weeks. The study overview concludes ominously: 'Current demands on water resources in many parts of the West will not be met under plausible future climate conditions, much less the demands of a larger population and larger economy." - Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Get the book.) "Human life was dramatically different in a world that was six degrees cooler: rapid climate shifts meant that agriculture was impossible; even in the tropics the reduced temperatures led to desiccation, with prolonged droughts across Africa and the Middle East. In addition, temperature swings were astonishingly rapid - several degrees in the space of a decade as the climate warmed and then cooled again." - Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Get the book.)

"Tree ring studies from the Atlas Mountains just north of the Sahel reveal at least six droughts lasting twenty to fifty years between ad iioo and 1850. The next run of dry years proved catastrophic after almost a half million square miles of West African forest were cleared in under a century. The 1973 West African famine killed more than a hundred rhousand people and left seven million dependent on donated food. Triggered by drought, the roots of the crisis lay in the changing relationship of the people to the land." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"We find common memories of droughts, plagues, and famines, of inquisitions, holocausts, and a slave trade. Because of this similarity in the experience of the human species, we can apply processes that involve archetypal patterning to discover what story was handed down through our family lineage. In their gene research, scientists have learned something about our codons that surprised them. Codons are like computer chips that hold programs of possibilities. While there are 64 codon combinations available to us, scientists found that we are only accessing 20 of them." - Margaret Ruby, The DNA of Healing: A Five-Step Process for Total Wellness and Abundance (Get the book.)

"Moche homeland coincided with strong El Nino episodes in the north, causing widespread political adjustments as different groups, rulers, and kingdoms competed for farmland and control of water supplies. New states arose in the highlands that adopted an entirely different, and arguably more effective, approach to economic and political control of their extensive domains." - Brian Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Get the book.) "Egypt brought starvation and political disorder to the land. The famines were so memorable that high officials, such as Ankhtifi, recalled them on their sepulchers: All of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger, to such a degree that everyone had come to eating his children, but I managed that no one died of hunger in this nome [province]. I made a loan of grain to Upper Egypt.... I kept alive the House of Elephantine during these years, after the towns of Hefat and Hormer had been satisfied. . . . The entire country had become like a starved (?" - Brian Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Get the book.) "The litany of weather anomalies and disasters seems unending. Australia suffered through a drought that affected 60 percent of its 67,000 farms. Crop production fell by 31 percent. Even irrigated farms growing cotton and rice suffered from water shortages. Wind erosion blasted the dry grain fields and pastures. A dust storm in February 1983 carried at least 150,000 metric tons of soil from farms in Victoria into Melbourne and far offshore. Bush fires in southeast South Australia and Victoria consumed 500,000 hectares, killing 72 people and more than 300,000 animals." - Brian Fagan, Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"They argued over droughts, air circulation patterns, snowfall, ice caps, and a thousand other indicators of whether global warming was "likely" or "directly" our fault. In spite of the strong belief in the scientific community that all of our cars, factories, and other activities were speeding up global warming at an alarming rate, the politicians managed to get the official word to be "likely." High in the Sierra Nevada (Snow-Capped Mountains) of Colombia, indigenous Arhuaco coffee farmer Javier Mestres had no such doubts. He did not see things in parts per million." - Dean Cycon, Javatrekker: Dispatches From the World of Fair Trade Coffee (Get the book.)

"More category 5 hurricanes than ever charted in history 0 The most deadly tsunami ever chronicled Record floods Terrible droughts causing the destruction of forests, the drying up of reservoirs, the huge loss of wildlife, widespread crop loss and starvation everywhere from the western U.S." - Jackie Lapin, The Art of Conscious Creation: How You Can Transform the World (Get the book.)

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that severe storms, extreme floods, and droughts will become more pronounced as global warming advances.3 In general, we are in for much more unstable weather in the decades ahead. The effects will be complex and vary considerably from place to place. For instance, while Europe broiled in the summer of 2003, the northeast United States breezed through an eerily cool summer, with few days over 90 degrees all season. An altered jet stream pattern prevented southerly air from 3." - James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (Get the book.)

"Juazeiro is highly resistant to the seasonal droughts of the northeast, grows very slowly and is very long lived; 100-year-old specimens have been recorded. The tree is also native to the caatingas of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. In South America, the genus is referred to as Zizyphus; in North America it is classified as Ziziphus. It is a genus of about 100 species of deciduous or evergreen trees and shrubs distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world." - Leslie Taylor, ND, The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs: A Guide to Understanding and Using Herbal Medicinals (Get the book.)

"Although they expect an increase in average precipitation throughout the globe, they also predict more frequent droughts and heat waves in the United States. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's analysis suggests that the number of hot summers in the 1990s will double compared with the period 1950 through 1979. droughts will increase similarly. What are the implications for agriculture? Heat and water stress during the critical days of flowering can devastate corn. Higher than usual temperatures prevent wheat from maturing properly." - H. Patricia Hynes, Earth Right (Get the book.)

"Local healthcare systems are strained—as well as supplies of food and potable water—particularly since the diseases are accompanied by heavy rainfall, droughts, and storms. The infections most closely linked to ENSO are probably those borne by microorganisms that spend a large part of their life cycle outside the human body. They spend it mostly in seawater (cholera) or in mosquitoes (malaria), where they are at the mercy of the elements. Particularly with diarrheal diseases, the weather not only helps start epidemics but can keep them going." - Jaap Goudsmit M.D., Viral Fitness: The Next SARS and West Nile in the Making (Get the book.)

"Like the planet, you can also have droughts and floods, stagnant pools and fresh-flowing streams. We all have our cycles. Many of us have cycles in which held-in emotions are released, like the winter rains. Then, with the new awareness and expression of these feelings comes a real lightening up of our energy. Water, sometimes held in the body along with the emotions, can cause lethargy and slowness, irritability, and an inability to express ourselves." - Elson M. Haas, Staying Healthy With the Seasons (Get the book.)

"The result, of course, is imbalances that create floods, droughts, and extreme weather problems. Nature is also mimicked in our own bodies. In May 1998, a short newspaper article in the Daily Mole in England reported that medical scientists, in conjunction with aeronautical engineers, at the Imperial College in London,7 were able to observe that the blood swirls as it rushes through our arteries. In other words, Nature has even designed our internal water systems with vortexes and internal twists in our arteries to mimic and recreate the vortical energies." - Gabriel Cousens, M.D., Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and the Awakening of Kundalini (Get the book.)

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